The Shining Mountains, Alix Christie
The Shining Mountains, Alix Christie
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The Shining Mountains
A Novel

Author: Alix Christie

Narrator: Kate Zane

Unabridged: 15 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/19/2023

Synopsis

The year is 1838. A young Scotsman forced from his homeland arrives at Hudson's Bay. Angus McDonald is contracted to British masters to trade for fur. But the world he discovers is beyond even a Highlander's wildest imaginings: raging rivers, buffalo hunts, and the powerful daughter of an ancient and magnificent people. In Catherine Baptiste, kin to Nez Perce chiefs, Angus recognizes a kindred spirit. The Rocky Mountain West in which they meet will soon be torn apart by competing claims: between British fur traders, American settlers, and the Native peoples who have lived for millennia in the valleys and plateaus of the Shining Mountains' western slopes.

In this epic family saga, the real history of the American West is revealed in all its terror, beauty, and complexity. The Shining Mountains brilliantly limns a world now long forgotten: of blended cultures seeking allies, trading furs for guns and steel, and a way of life in collision with westward colonial expansion.

About Alix Christie

Alix Christie is the direct descendant of Angus McDonald's brother Duncan. Her debut novel, Gutenberg's Apprentice, was published in 2014. For the past thirty years she has reported for newspapers in California and from Europe as a foreign correspondent, including for the Washington Post, the Guardian of London, the San Francisco Chronicle, and salon.com. She currently reviews books and arts for The Economist. She lives in San Francisco, California.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Laura

Beautifully written historical fiction.......more

Goodreads review by Miriam

A novel, but one that relies on the true history of the destruction of the native Indian tribes that took place during the opening up of the American West to white men. First came trappers, then traders, then explorers like Lewis and Clark, then miners, then settlers in their wagon trains and then U......more

Goodreads review by G.P.

Angus McDonald had to escape from Scotland or risk arrest. In 1838, he contracted with the Hudson Bay Company to trade in the Pacific Northwest. There he discovers majestic mountains, raging rivers, and buffalo. He meets and marries Catherine, who is related to Nez Perce royalty, and together they f......more

Goodreads review by Catherine

This is a fascinating account of the life of Angus MacDonald and his Nez Perce wife Catherine, in the 1800s.Angus was working for the Hudson Bay Company ,trading with Native tribes, guns for beaver pelts with Native tribes.The author has lyrical descriptions of the Northwest landscapes, and shows ho......more

Goodreads review by Alison

This is one of the best books I have read in years. The process of incredible research and investigation that Alix Christie did into her ancestors as well as the deeply collaborative process of consultation that she did with the Pacific northwest tribes elders councils and individuals have creates a......more

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